white spruce

noun

1

: any of several spruces

especially : a widely distributed spruce (Picea glauca) of coniferous forests of Canada and the northern U.S. that has short stiff blue-green needles and slender cones see cone illustration

2

: the wood of a white spruce

especially : the light pale tough straight-grained wood of the common white spruce (Picea glauca) used especially for construction and as a source of paper pulp

Example Sentences

Recent Examples on the Web

Mayor Michelle Wu — flanked by Santa Claus, Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, and a Canadian Mountie — hit the button to light up the 45-foot white spruce from Nova Scotia. —Camilo Fonseca, BostonGlobe.com, 1 Dec. 2022

In Alaska, for example, white spruce trees are moving into areas of tundra for the first time in thousands of years. —Alex Cuadros, New York Times, 4 Jan. 2023

Our field study focuses on 700 white spruce trees spread along 1,500 miles of mountains between Canada and the Chukchi Sea. —Roman Dial, Outside Online, 15 Sep. 2022

The white spruce colonists are likely warming the Arctic landscape too. —WIRED, 24 Aug. 2022

And, boy, business is booming for white spruce right now. —WIRED, 24 Aug. 2022

The larger rivers support significant stands of white spruce. —John Schandelmeier, Anchorage Daily News, 4 June 2022

This seemed puzzling when a porcupine’s major food was to be the inner bark of white spruce trees and the tree’s bitter needles, rich with toxins that discourage most every other animal from chewing them. —Ned Rozell, Anchorage Daily News, 8 Jan. 2022

Bette Gourley, the matriarch of the family, told CBS News' Nancy Chen that the white spruce has been growing alongside her family for nearly four decades now. —Emily D'alessandro, CBS News, 25 Dec. 2021

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Word History

First Known Use

1731, in the meaning defined at sense 1